


Cause and Effect

by 2inchlich



Category: Original Work
Genre: Adult Content, Angst, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fear, G/T, Giants, Historical, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Macro/Micro, Multi, Nudity, Size Difference, Strong Language, Vomiting, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-13 16:27:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21173063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2inchlich/pseuds/2inchlich
Summary: Kjeld discovers that the life he's been living is a lie.  On the eve of a new war, he loses his humanity and becomes something far darker than he ever thought himself capable of.





	Cause and Effect

The full white mug in Kjeld’s hand stings his palm, the coffee inside sloshing out and sending steaming black droplets careening down onto his wrist. He winces quietly and shuffles the mug to his other hand, wiping the stray liquid off on his army green fatigues.

“Been here for two weeks and the worst that’s happened is I’ve burned myself with coffee every day since I got here,” he says with a wide grin.

His father had been proud of him for volunteering. The other men he’d met so far since starting basic training had mostly been drafted, but there were other volunteers here and there. 

The young volunteer sitting beside him in the mess hall laughs, but it’s almost humorless.

“You’re like a machine, Blondie. I don’t see you break a sweat unless some stupid shit like that happens.”

Kjeld smirks at Francis, lightly punching the shorter brunette’s arm. “You just need to toughen up Franky. Them nazis are gonna walk all over you.”

“Not if you don’t first,” Franky jabs back. “What do they feed you in Alabama, you’re a fuckin’ giant.”

“I’m guessing it’s whatever they don’t feed you in New York,” Kjeld replies with a wink.

Training goes smooth. There’s an obstacle course. Kjeld flies through it, tearing his lip on barbed wire but ignoring it. It’s anticipated pain, and he toughs it out. The sting of the barbed wire lashing at his hip is worse, but still manageable. It’s not as bad as any of the small scars from him and Brenna sparring. All those years spent playing with swords—at his father’s behest—had hardened him against pain. 

He finishes just before Franky, and both of them nearly a full minute ahead of all but the slowest recruits.

“You’re like a mouse,” Kjeld says through panting breaths, “How’d you get so fast little guy? Did you think there’d be cheese at the end of it?” 

Franky laughs. Kjeld knows he wouldn’t laugh like that if anyone else jabbed at Franky the way he does.

“Nah, I was hoping to watch you chase some kid down a beanstalk.” 

They get the night off. Kjeld, Franky and two other recruits—JB and Wally—go to town and directly to the nearest liquor store. They toss around the idea of going to a bar before they head there, but Kjeld mentions how close they are to the beach. The idea of drinking in the sand reminds Kjeld of his “uncle” Byrne. The distinct sadness he thought he saw in the other man’s eyes when he asked him the questions he wouldn’t ask his father: “_Did you know my mom,_” and “_What was she like?_”.

“I can’t drink,” Franky whines from the backseat. “You guys are just gonna get drunk and I have to babysit?”

“You’re gonna die for your country, Babe, you can have a fuckin’ beer,” JB snaps back from the passenger seat. “This kid, I swear to Christ these Italians are the whiniest little fuckers I’ve ever had to fuckin’ deal with,” he mumbles at Kjeld. 

“Hey, ain’t you a kraut?” Wally says, kicking JB’s seat.

“Hey, hey, knock it off,” Kjeld says, pulling a cigarette out of his breast pocket with one hand and steering with the other. “Franky, you’re 19, that’s close enough. I’ll buy it for you, okay?”

“You’re a saint, Blondie. I’ll buy you one when we get back from all this bullshit.” 

Franky’s voice is softer now. Kjeld knows why. They’ve talked about it before. Franky is the last kind of guy that needs to be in the army, and he knows it. Kjeld does too, but doesn’t want to admit it. He’s fast, and smart, and strong, but he’s afraid. Kjeld lights his cigarette. He doesn’t think that Franky will be coming back from all this bullshit.

The waves lap softly at the shore. The moon is a thin crescent on the horizon and has only started its ascent by the time they finish building their campfire and sit in the sand. Kjeld lights another cigarette and opens Franky’s beer for him.

“Jesus Kjeld, you his mom or somethin’?” JB growls out from across the fire.

“Shut up JB,” Kjeld snaps, glaring half-heartedly at the other recruit. He tosses him his pack of cigarettes.

“Oh! Looks like you’re my mom too, huh?” 

Kjeld ignores him and opens his own beer. 

The smell of it mingling with the surf and the burning wood and cigarette smoke hits him abruptly and a wave of nausea overcomes him. He stands, wobbling slightly on his feet. The sound of JB and Wally playfully arguing fades into a dull hum as he stares into the fire.

“You alright Blondie?”

The sound of Franky’s voice cuts through the haze like a knife. JB and Wally keep up their heated conversation, but Kjeld hears Franky’s softer voice over it all.

“Yeah. Drink this for me, I’m not feelin’ too hot.” He slides the bottle into Franky’s free hand, fingers brushing against his wrist when he does. 

_His skin is so smooth_, Kjeld thinks with a small smile. He staggers off into the nearby woods, the conversation growing quieter and quieter with each step he takes away. 

“Is that goofy motherfucker drunk already? What the hell, I didn’t see him take a fuckin’ sip,” he hears JB cry out indignantly before the sounds of his talking friends fade into an indistinguishable hum in the distance. 

He collapses just past the treeline, falling to his knees in the sand and dirt. His vision is blurry and the world around him fades into streaks of black and green and blue. It feels like he’s been out there for hours, but just a few minutes later he feels a hand on his back. 

“You alright Kjeld?” Franky _never_ calls him Kjeld.

He opens his mouth to reply, but instead a stream of blood red vomit gushes from between his lips and into the dirt in front of him. 

“Fuck,” he whimpers through clenched teeth, a sudden burst of pain tearing through his stomach and chest.

“Jesus Christ, guys! Get the fuck over here, he needs help!”

Kjeld’s body tenses suddenly. He convulses sharply, head snapping back as he lets out a pained cry. He can hear and feel the bones in his body cracking beneath his skin. He feels like they must be breaking, but they aren’t—the experience is just as painful as it would be if they had. 

White hot pain shoots through his body, radiating from his chest. He cries. He _sobs_ for the first time in a long time, and certainly the first time around any of his friends. 

“What the fuck,” he hears Wally’s shaky voice. For once he doesn’t hear a word out of JB.

“I don’t know what the fuck is happening,” Franky says, kneeling in the dirt by Kjeld, ignoring the bloody vomit seeping into the knees of his fatigues. “He needs help, don’t they teach you about this shit in the infirmary?”

“Fuck no,” Wally practically shouts. “I don’t know what the fuck this is.”

That’s when the world goes silent. Just for a moment. Kjeld goes numb except for a sensation not dissimilar from falling. The world around him shrinks away and it’s like he’s flying, but he still feels his knees firmly planted in the dirt. Something squirms beneath his shin. A worm? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. Something beneath the toe of one of his boots too. There’s one sharp crack and a grinding crunch from beneath his boot and a smaller crack from beneath his shin as he stands.

He stands slowly, a dirt stained palm rising to his forehead. The pain from before is gone save for a dull ache in his joints. It reminds him of growing pains he’d get as a child. 

“I’m alright,” he mumbles, wiping red spit from his chin. That’s when he hears the screaming and crying in the distance. 

“Kjeld what the fuck!” A hoarse cry sounds out from somewhere but he can’t pinpoint it. His vision is still blurry.

“JB?” He glances over his shoulder and sees the ocean, but none of the trees that had surrounded him before. That’s when he looks down. 

He hadn’t noticed the toy soldiers on the ground when he’d come out here. Granted, he hadn’t noticed much of anything. They look so lifelike though, tan skinned and dark haired. That’s when one moves. It takes off running away from him. The other lies in the dirt and he sees that it’s moving too, but far less than the other. 

“Kjeld, Kjeld, fuck, please help me.” The voice is faint, and coming from the toy soldier, and sounds far too familiar. 

Kjeld crouches down, scooping the small figure up in his hand. When he realizes what, and _who_, he’s holding, he drops him, the body landing in the dirt with a wet thud. The fall is a short one, only five feet or so, but Franky lets out a pained cry when he lands.

Kjeld sees his friend’s leg bent at an angle that even he knows it shouldn’t be bent at. He reaches down again, about to pick Franky up and actually help him this time, when he feels a burst of searing pain spray across his forearm and hand. He winces as he withdraws his hand and sees tiny pinpricks of red bloom across his pale skin. A row of soldiers, other recruits that he barely recognizes, have guns aimed at him. He hears multiple shouts of “monster” from the group. He panics. 

“I-I’m sorry,” he stammers out before standing and sprinting away from Franky and the others.

The act of running is easy, it’s the same as it was when he was smaller, but now he knows that he feels the ground shudder beneath his feet with each step. He isn’t too far from where Byrne lives, he knows, and he’s thankful for that. He wouldn’t want to go to his father like this. He doesn’t think Byrne would judge him for being a “monster” and even if he did, he could live with that more than any judgement passed by his father. He makes a beeline across the landscape, catching the attention of numerous people still out on the roads and in the small towns along his route. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel or hear anymore gunfire now, so he at least feels safe. 

He doesn’t make it to Byrne’s house before he feels a wave of nausea wash over him once more. Kjeld crashes into a clearing in the woods and collapses, panting hoarsely. He gags, nearly puking again before he feels tiny hands on his skin. Standing on the ground by his shaking hand is a small, mostly nude, woman. 

“What the fuck,” he mumbles, squinting at her in the moonlight. 

“You okay big guy?” Her voice is sweet and soft and she doesn’t seem at all afraid of him. A few more, soaking wet and scantily clad, women approach him from a nearby lake with a figure in it that would have loomed over him had he been normal sized, but that stands just slightly taller than him now. 

“Hey,” the figure calls out, voice gruff and unwelcoming. It makes Kjeld flinch when he first hears it. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

The other giant approaches him, rising out of the lake. Kjeld looks up, about to apologize and start running again, but freezes. 

“Byrne?”

The other giant pauses, standing on the edge of the lake.

“Kjeld?” The giant’s voice softens noticeably. Kjeld relaxes, but only slightly. 

“Byrne, I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s going on,” tears spill from his eyes openly.

As the hot tears stream down his cheeks he hears a small, sad gasp from below and feels a small, warm, damp body sit on the back of his trembling hand and lean against his wrist.

Byrne lets out a low sigh. Kjeld almost thinks it sounds relieved. “Sit down,” the other giant says. “We need to talk.”


End file.
